Help with buying capture card

I am kinda new to NLE and I am working on getting a system built. I have a new P4 2.8Ghz with Hyper-Threading, 512 DDR 3200, Gainward 5200 with dual monitor support. I understand that capture cards are where the quality is affected. I am thinking about the Pinnacle Studio 9 bundle but for this price how good can the card be? Any advice? I am pretty confused in this area. Thanks.

First - If you go DV in via firewire the video qulaity will be the same regardless of which hardware you go with. If you also want to capture anlog & DV both the Studio 9 AVDV and Studio 9 Deluxe use the same AV/DV encoding chips. the big difference is the breakout box.

The MovieBox USB captures into MPEG, not DV. The video qulaity is not as good as DV, but it is perfect for going to DVD. Since you capture and edit in MPEG, there is no need to re-compress.

Gary
Videoguys.com

Videoguys.com / The Electronic Mailbox 800 323-2325
We Are The Desk Top Video Editing & Production Experts

All DTV purchases come with our exclusive 30 day customer assurance program and FREE Tech Support

I do plan on capturing analog also. So if I buy the Studio 9 AVDV I will be able to make good quality videos? Can you choose a format to capture to in the capturing program? What if I eventually want to make DVDs? Will there be a lot of quality loss if I have to convert a file to Mpeg. Thanks a lot.